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Topic: What's gone wrong? Beaufort disaster (Read 477 times)

I started to make my first Beaufort this morning. 18 Litres of raw milk, the first time I have used it, having always bought supermarket milk until I discovered a reasonably local farmer yesterday so I was very excited!

Using Sailors recipe I heated to 90F, added the cultures and left to ripen for 30 mins. This is where it started to go wrong as I suddenly had a work-related emergency so I left it ripening for around 50 mins.

I then added the rennet - 95 drops of liquid veg. rennet in 1/4 cup cooled boiled water. This is as per the manufacturers recommended dosage of 5 drops per litre which has always produced a reasonable floc time in the past in the region of 15-20mins for this quantity of milk. (I added the extra 5 drops in case you're wondering as the recipe calls for a floc time of 10-15 mins so I thought this might speed it up.)

However, I am now sat here, an hour and half later and my little jar is still spinning on the surface. It's not spinning freely by any means, but normally it stops dead.I don't know why raw milk would be different, I thought I had read that it needs 'less' rennet?.I'm not sure what to do now, I'll probably give it another hour and see if I get a clean break but has anyone any idea why this could have happened and what the consequences might be assuming I do eventually get it to set enough to cut?

This year I started to make my cheeses without pasteurizing the milk and did not add Calcium Carbonate and had the same problem than you. My break clean point that was 45 to 50 minutes start to be almost two hours.I reviewed all the process and realized that the only other difference was the addition of Calcium Carbonate that I stop to make..After I started to use again the Calcium Carbonate the flocculation time becomes always is between 12 and 18 minutes.I noted that the recipe you used do not mention the Calcium Carbonate.It would be nice to hear something from the more experienced cheese makers of the forum.

That's really interesting - first time I haven't used CaCl as well. I thought it was only necessary to replenish what was lost during pasteurisation.

As you say, Hopefully some of the more experienced makers can help?

I decided maybe the floc method wasn't working as the cup night be spinning on the fat (long shot I know but I was getting desperate) so, after two hours I seemed to get a cleannish break so I started cutting. - Nightmare now! all curds clumping together in one big mass - I'm trying to chop with a whisk but I think this might be one to add to Boofers Failures thread!

The cooking process was horrible, the curds just clumped together and, although at the start I could cut them with a whisk, after 15 mins they were so rubbery that I had to resort to a knife as I brought them to the surface with my skimmer. I hit the right temperatures at the right time but somehow I don't think that will make much difference to this cheese.

When I drained my pot, for the first time ever I didn't lose a single curd - they had already formed a single cheese at the bottom

I milled them and they are currently sitting in the mould under whey. - I will post a pic later but not expecting anything edible out of this.If anyone has any ideas what caused this chain of events please let me know so I can avoid this next time.

I started to make my first Beaufort this morning. 18 Litres of raw milk, the first time I have used it, having always bought supermarket milk until I discovered a reasonably local farmer yesterday so I was very excited!

I am guessing that the effects of too much rennet are barely noticeable on processed store bought milk , in fact too much may even be beneficial for overly processed milk , but on raw milk , the effects of using too much are amplified , and result in what you have now.

Like you said , the only thing you did different on this make was use Raw milk , and there are things other than rennet that affect floc times.

Here's a quote from another thread and a more experienced cheese maker.

I was bang on 90.0F at the time I added the rennet so I don't think it can be that.

I assume the cultures I used would have no effect on coagulation time, and if I rule out temperature (accurate thermometer) that leaves bad rennet, but its a bottle only a month old and it was fine for the last few makes so must be the milk. However, I have no idea why that should be the case, it came out of the cow yesterday, it tasted great (I had some on my cornflakes!) so I'm totally stumped.

Anyway, at least it looks like a nice cheese, the yields not great for some reason (another clue what went wrong? 1.82Kg and I can play the 'wonder what it will taste like' game for the next 6 months

I use only raw milk, and have noticed, based on make notes that I need 20 to 30 percent less rennet to achieve desired flocc and set time. Drops can be an inconsistent method of measure, I have gone to using a syringe and measuring rennet in ml. Hope this helps.Paul